HC Deb 11 February 1991 vol 185 c307W
Mr. Tom Clarke

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs at which conferences dealing with third world debt reduction he was represented during 1989 and 1990.

Mrs. Chalker

The Secretary of State attended the Houston economic summit in 1990. Sir Geoffrey Howe as Secretary of State attended the Paris economic summit in 1989. The permanent secretary of the Overseas Development Administration was a member of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's delegation for the 1989 and 1990 annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World bank, and the six-monthly meetings of their interim and development committees. He also attended the Commonwealth Finance Ministers meetings in Jamaica in 1989 and in Trinidad in 1990, where Britain launched new proposals on reducing the official debt of the poorest countries. I have attended a number of international gatherings at which debt has been discussed, including the United Nations special session on economic recovery and development in April 1990.

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